He Keeps and Cares

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from?My help comes from the Lord,the Maker of heaven and earth.

He will not let your foot slip—he who watches over you will not slumber;indeed, he who watches over Israelwill neither slumber nor sleep.

The Lord watches over you—the Lord is your shade at your right hand;the sun will not harm you by day,nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all harm—he will watch over your life;the Lord will watch over your coming and goingboth now and forevermore.-Psalm 121

Before leaving for South Asia, I knew my trust in God would be put to the test. Our travel schedule alone took us through the Middle East, across country on a small domestic flight, and along winding mountain passes before the real part of the trip ever started.

Weeks out a team member shared Psalm 121:3 as a prayer request. Looking more into the Psalm, I decided it would benefit me to memorize it before leaving.

If I hadn’t, my experience in the foothills of the Himalayas would have been anxiety-ridden. Most of the time I had no clue what was happening or where we were headed. But the first half of the trip passed with my steps firmly trusting God.

And then my foot slipped … and I ate it.

Thanks to the turtleshell of a pack on my back and a borrowed trekking pole, I escaped injury. But I tend to take things a little too literal and threw an inner hissy fit … clearly God didn’t care about me if He let me slip and fall (see Psalm 121:3).

I stewed for an hour until I met my tent-mate on the trail. She listened to my frustrations and asked if I was hurt.

“No,” I said. “See, God does care,” she said.

Oh, how she was right about that.

You see, this was the longest day of our hike and my team happened to be the best at taking the long route to camp.

Roughly seven miles in we started descending into a valley–home to one of the only pastors in this remote region of the world. We stopped at his house for water and rest before the final push to camp.

As we left, Ezekiel 37 ran through my head, like it had just days before.

The hand of the Lord was on me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of theLord and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones.He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

I said, “Sovereign Lord, you alone know.”

Then he said to me, “Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breathenter you, and you will come to life.” -Ezekiel 37:1-5

There are a lot of valleys in South Asia … most of which are spiritually dead. They don’t know Jesus and haven’t heard His message. But that wasn’t the case here.

Here God breathed life into dry bones … and He cared enough to show me.

He cares about me. He cares about my teammates. He cares about those we carried the gospel to. And, friend, He deeply cares for you. Do you believe it?